1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention relates to the sale and distribution of software products. More particularly, the field of the invention relates to a system and method for selling software products via a network.
2. Description of the Related Technology
The process of manufacturing and distributing software products can be expensive. Manufacturing costs include the cost of purchasing media such as the floppy disks or CD-ROMs, equipment to write the software onto the media, labels to mark the media, and the packaging and shipping costs associated with sending the media to users and purchasers of the product. The manufacturing process includes the preparation of physical media for distribution, and may be very time-consuming depending on the availability of manufacturing resources. Furthermore, labor costs include the cost of coordinating the manufacturing process, the testing process, and the physical distribution process.
In view of these problems, certain distributors have recently turned to selling and transmitting the software products to users via the Internet. As non-limiting examples, software products include: games, business software, databases, audio files, music, audio books, and video files. When selling software products, it is possible to complete the entire transaction, i.e., accept payment from a customer, and deliver the digital content to the customer, within the confines of the Internet. Electronic distribution carries fewer of the costs associated with manufacturing and distributing tangible products.
When selling software products over the Internet, the user typically provides billing information and in return, is then granted access to download the purchased software product. This can be viewed as a one time transaction. The user may or may not at later point in time purchase other software products from the vendor. Disadvantageously, known software distribution systems do not provide vendors with a consistent recurring revenue stream for the sale of multiple different products.
Other distributors have turned to selling subscriptions (“leases”) that allow the user to download selected software products and use the products for the term of the subscription. Disadvantageously for the users, at the end of the subscription, the user does not have the right to retain the software. At the end of the subscription, the downloaded software product is typically inoperative. This is less satisfactory to many users than being able to retain ownership of purchased products.
Consequently, vendors have a need for an improved system and method that increases recurring revenue for the sale of software products. Furthermore, the system and method should allow a user to have unrestricted access to the software products that are acquired, and the system and method should provide economic, or otherwise valuable, incentives to the user to place recurrent purchases with a vendor.